


007 Fest 2020 Prose Round Robin

by Dart, ladymars, Linorien, notoneforreality, opalescentgold, SandyWormbook, SolarMorrigan, sunaddicted, themuller



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, 007 Fest 2020, Community: MI6 Cafe | mi6_cafe, Flirting, High School, M/M, Round Robin, Teaching, Undercover, mission, rom com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dart/pseuds/Dart, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymars/pseuds/ladymars, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien, https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality, https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalescentgold/pseuds/opalescentgold, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandyWormbook/pseuds/SandyWormbook, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted, https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuller/pseuds/themuller
Summary: The 2020 Fest prose round robin!Prompt: Bond has to go undercover as a teacher at a school.Genre: Rom-com
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	007 Fest 2020 Prose Round Robin

Anders Cross Secondary School wasn’t a particularly large or well-known institution. It only had four forms in each year group, which meant that even with the sixth form, there were only around eight hundred students at the school at any one time. The site wasn’t new, but nor was it an historic place, just a collection of four buildings huddled together on the edge of a large grounds. 

Still, James stared up at the red-painted front doors and tugged at his collar, loosening the tie. He was wearing a suit off the rack, today, and the fit was different to his usual suits, a fact that wasn’t helping his discomfort. It was necessary, though, because he was supposed to be the new French teacher, Mr. Lyon, and secondary school teachers didn’t make the sort of money that allowed them to wear tailored suits every day.

He fiddled with his cufflinks -- just silver plated squares, bought on sale at M&S -- and then shook his head and dropped his hands. James Bond was an international spy with a license to kill, no stranger to facing deadly situations every other day and still making it back to MI6 to annoy the rest of the staff. This was the easiest mission he’d had in a long while: watch the headmistress, Mrs. O’Connell, to find out how involved she was in the terrorist cell that was run through the school. There were no expected confrontations, and in fact he should be bored for most of it. He was staying undercover for at least the first term of the year -- September to the Christmas holidays -- which meant four months of playing teacher, setting and marking work and interacting with the kids.

Kids.

That was the concerning part.

Before he could dwell too long on the very real concern that he didn’t know how to interact with kids at all, he set his shoulders and marched into the main school building, stepping up to the window of the front office.

“Hi, how can I help you?” A woman with short ginger hair peered up at him through square blue-framed glasses with a friendly smile.

“Hugo Lyon,” James said. “I’m the new French teacher?”

“Oh, of course!” The woman disappeared from the window for a moment and reappeared with an ID card on a lanyard in the navy blue of the school uniform. It had his cover name on it, along with the school crest and the label ‘STAFF PASS’. In the corner, James’ face looked back at him. 

He had not provided a photo for the pass. He wondered who in Q-Branch had been in charge of that, and what he had done to upset them.

“Pop that on, and then I’ll be out in a minute to show you around,” the woman said.

James waited, scanning the front lobby and making note of the trophy cabinet, underneath the display listing all the names of the Heads of School since 1963. Next to it was a table with two chairs, currently empty.

Something creaked behind him and James turned to see the ginger woman coming out of a door further down the corridor.

“I’m Bernadette, by the way,” she said. “The kids call me Mrs. Williams. Now, follow me.”

She led James through the crowded hallways with ease and although James was used to operating in crowded markets, he was having more trouble not running into students. Nearly all of them were on their phones or too busy talking to friends to pay attention to their surroundings. None of them would ever make good spies. Maybe he was the last of a kind of agent, the end of an era. 

Certainly all the boffins in Q-Branch would agree. 

He nearly made it to his new classroom without incidents, but at the last minute, someone came bursting out of the door next to his. Bond slammed into them and his first thought was a fight against his instinct to attack them, and the next thought was that their drink was now all down his front. What a way to start the term.

Quentin made sure to walk slowly down the street so Abigail wouldn’t trip over her feet while she walked and texted. He knew he should tell her to put her phone down and watch where she was going, but she had barely allowed him to walk with her to school and she resisted being talked to like a child. Better not start a fight so early in the morning.

This arrangement had been so sudden, so of course she would be resistant to him. Over the summer, a car accident had taken her mother, his sister. Her father wasn’t in the picture, and his father was much too frail to keep an eye on a teenager. So, Quentin stepped up for his niece.

Abigail was nearly done with school, and it’s not like Quentin had much of a home life anyway. Single, with no children of his own, and with no housemates besides his pair of cats. Maybe it would be good to get out of the city too. All he did was go to work, and even then, he could work remotely if he so wished. After the funeral and the tedious pile of paperwork, he moved out to her, figuring it would be better to not uproot her and add pain to the loss. His work wasn’t affected much, and the cats didn’t seem to mind the change of scenery. 

Still, the pain couldn’t totally be erased. It had taken him some adjustment to live in a house filled with his sister’s memories. He made sure not to expose Abigail to that, his own loss. She was experiencing enough of it from her own. He knew she was much too old to parent, but he figured that at least he could gently guide her and made sure she did okay. He could do that much.

Quentin stopped a few steps away from the flow of students and parents going into the doors of the main school building. His niece came to a stop besides him, eyes still on her phone. “Abby, we’re here,” he informed her in case she hadn’t noticed, though his voice was a bit sardonic. He couldn’t understand how she remained glued to her device the whole walk to school. Even he needed a break from the screens from time to time.

Her tapping did not falter for a second. “I know, shut up. Let me finish texting Mo,” she snapped. 

Quentin thought better than to press her. Teenagers… He simply waited, crossing his arms with a heavy sigh and looking out to the street to watch the other students step into the main building. They just had to do this for one year, and then she would graduate and decide what to do next. It’ll be fine. He glanced over when she finally pocketed her phone and grabbed her thermos of coffee from her bag. With a small smile, he said to her, “Have a nice—" 

And she was off without a glance towards him. He was met with the back of his niece hurrying away and then disappearing behind the red front doors. Well, that was that, he supposed.

Quentin didn’t take it personally. Abigail was a good kid, just a teenager that had gone through a lot recently. She’s a good student too. Brilliant. His sister would tease him by saying that she was glad she somehow got his brains. Of course, she was still young, still carefree. About as forgetful as he was. So, he did worry that she was bound to do something absentminded like go into the wrong classroom on the first day of school.

Which is exactly what she did. Mo had replied back to her text message, and Abigail had walked right into Room 134 while she balanced her phone and her coffee. When she realized this was biology for the underclassmen instead of A Level French, she scurried out of the room, hoping no one saw her, and flew right into a person. The loose thermos lid flew out, and the mostly full cup spilled onto her victim’s chest. “My coffee!” she wailed.

Then she realized that while she didn’t recognize the man, he had a staff pass and was likely a new teacher. Forgetting all about losing her much needed drink, she babbled in a panic, “Oh no, I’m so sorry, sir! I didn’t see where I was going! I’ll go get something to dab it off.” 

“It’s quite alright,” James told her, wincing as he tugged at his soaked shirt to get the hot liquid away from his skin. The girl was drawing a lot of attention to him, so he better defuse that. 

Mrs. Williams seemed disquieted by the terrible first impression. “Mr. Lyons, I’m terribly sorry,” she said to him as she cleared the way to his classroom. Abigail had sprinted off to see if she could find napkins. “I’ll see if someone has a spare shirt.”

“Really, it’s no problem,” he insisted, just relieved to be away from the crowd. There were a few students mingling in the classroom already, but they didn’t pay him any mind. “Accidents happen.”

Before James could settle in, the coffee-wielding girl,  _ Abigail _ , returned with a stack of paper towels and launched herself at him. He quickly sent her to her seat, but frankly, he’d been groped less by henchmen searching for hidden weapons. He knew it wasn’t intentional, some adolescents were just clumsy magnets of awkwardness. 

Once class started and introductions were made, James went over the syllabus, spending most of the time going over the requirements for the individual projects they would complete this term and the trip to France this fall. He stressed that they could only go if they got enough parents or guardians to chaperone. He idly wondered if this sort of trip was normal. He could think of multiple ways the terrorist cell could use this trip to its advantage.

He’d already been informed he’d need to share a room with a male chaperone to cut costs. Maybe the trip wouldn’t make. Maybe he’d be so sick of being stuck in London, he would call every parent and guardian until enough agreed to chaperone.

That evening, James sat down at the desk in the small room of the B&B, where he was staying for the duration of this mission. He was dead tired.

Easy, he thought. As if. Just because they don’t shoot you.

He huffed, remembering the coffee spilling incident with Abigail. She had apologised profusely, as had Mrs Williams, Bernadette, that is. He might need to keep an eye on her, as she seemed to be very close with Mrs O’Connell. Come to think of it, the two of them had been very, very close. He recalled the shared glances and casual touches. Maybe Moneypenny would have been a better choice for this assignment. She could do with a brush up of her French. Groaning at the bad innuendo – what has become of him? Already he was telling Dad jokes, what would be next? – he shook his head.

Back to Abigail. Or rather her – uncle? James frowned. He hadn’t given it another thought when Mo and Abigail had started to quarrel. Teenagers being teenagers, he had thought and hoped, Mrs Williams, Bernadette, that is, would take care of whatever was happening. Instead, Abigail had started crying, none of the other teachers were anywhere to be found, and James had to try and calm the girl as well as Mo, who was upset about upsetting Abigail. Who became more upset, because of Mo being upset – both of them becoming more and more agitated, attracting a crowd of other kids, who seemed to start a shouting and crying contest, as they all at once tried to explain to this stupid new teacher that Abigail was upset and could he, please, help her already. 

Eventually, he managed to extract Abigail from the crowd and get her into an empty classroom, Mo following meekly. Gently asking, he extracted the story about her mother being killed, she now living with her uncle, and everything just being too much, as with the coffee, and Mo being an arse. Mo looked sufficiently chastised by then. James had listened to Abigail, then called her uncle, Quentin.

He came twenty minutes later. Abigail had calmed down by then, dismissing his offer of taking her home. Instead, she and Mo went back to class, chatting as if nothing had happened. James had actually been speechless, before he remembered his manners and began apologising to Quentin. Quentin shook his head, beginning to apologise for Abigail’s behaviour. By then, James couldn’t help but grin, actually laugh when Quentin looked taken aback.

“Sorry,” James had managed, heaving for air. “It’s just, being the new teacher, and all. Usually I’d be dealing with college students and their shenanigans, and, really, everybody has been apologising since I came here this morning. And, well, sorry.”

At which point Quentin had bit his lower lip, and that had shut James up right away.

"I can see how that would be irritating after a while" Quentin admitted, intrigued by the man's attitude: he carried himself like someone who was confident in his skin but there was a dissonance in the way he talked - the tone didn't match the aura that radiated from him and that was fascinating. A bit worrying too, considering that the man would be in close contact with his niece for the foreseeable future; maybe Quentin was just being paranoid but he had already lost his sister and losing his niece - or having anything even remotely serious happen to her - wasn't something he would let happen. 

He glanced at the teacher's badge, just to be sure he had memorised the man's name. It had been a while since his hacking days and he was a little ashamed of even entertaining the idea of conducting a less than legal background check on Mr Lyon but.. he couldn't help it: he needed to protect Abigail and he would do anything to ensure her safety. 

It wasn't like he would get caught, anyway. 

That night, after sharing a dinner of warmed up leftovers with his niece (he had been trying to get better at cooking but be was starting from ground zero, having been content with ramen and frozen meals until a few months ago), Quentin packed up his laptop and scurried out of the house with the lame excuse of needing some adult interaction that Abigail didn't believe even for a second. 

The local B&B had an abysmal connection but the first rule of hacking was to never do it in the same place you lived in and Quentin wasn't going to make such a rookie kind of mistake - it would be just his luck that Mr Lyon in person would be sitting there, nursing a drink. Quentin sucked in his lower lip, fiddling with the strap of his laptop bag as he tried to decide what to do; maybe he really was being paranoid and the strange feeling he had towards his niece's teacher could be diffused by some talking.. 

Quentin sighed and straightened up a little as he walked up to the man's table, "Good evening, may I?"

Mr Lyon looked up with a startled smile. “Fancy meeting you here. Do sit down, there’s plenty of space.”

They stared at each other for longer than was necessary, both of them strangers and aware of the danger involved. Bond glanced at the laptop bag tucked against Quentin’s side. Obviously he had come here hoping to do some work. He noticed Quentin’s eyes flicker from the papers sprawled in front of him to the tablet he was flipping over and then to the drink he was twisting in his left hand. He gave a small twist of a smile and raised it in salute. “Here’s to first days.”

Quentin cracked a lopsided grin. “I completely agree, they can be shite.” He coughed into his hand. “If I’m truly not bothering you…”

“Not at all. It’s nice to see a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings.” Even though Quentin was new to the area, it was entirely possible he had heard some kind of gossip from his niece. Teenagers did talk after all, even if it wasn’t to the adults. “May I tempt you with a drink?” By the twist of Quentin’s lips, it wasn’t alcohol that he’d come here for. “Perhaps an alternative beverage. One distinctly english, served piping hot and that you can add however many lumps of sugar you wish?”

Quentin loosened his grip on his laptop bag and placed it on the table. Damn. He’d have to figure out how to look this fellow up and come up with an excuse to be out here, rather than at home. “Tea, thank you.”

Once a hot cup of tea had been set down in front of him, Quentin seemed to relax a little. This, combined with the subtle undercurrent of anxiety he had been giving off since the moment he had caught on to Bond’s presence in the room, was raising some suspicion. It could be nothing, Bond thought, but at the same time, it could be  _ something _ —it wouldn’t be amiss for a terrorist cell to have a few more contacts outside of the school itself, after all.

Just more leads he’d have to look into.

Bond settled back against his chair and schooled his smile into something approaching that of being reserved—six parts confident, four parts quiet—to keep up with the appearance of a new, slightly awkward teacher. Uncertain.

“How’s your niece—Abigail?” he asked, choosing the safest topic starter for the time being. She was their mutual rapport, and Quentin seemed to love her enough, according to what he had gleaned from their earlier uncle-niece interaction . 

Quentin gave Bond a wry sort of smile around the rim of his cup. “She seemed content when I left the house. Why? You haven’t assigned any homework yet she should have been working on, have you?”

“Nothing like that.” Bond offered a little laugh; to be honest, he was planning on avoiding assigning homework for as long as possible – he wasn’t altogether looking forward to grading it. “I’m… easing them into it.”

“I suppose you’d know better than I would how to run a class.” Quentin regarded Bond from across the table, fidgety and uncertain on the surface, but with something keen in his gaze. “Was that what your uni students responded best to?”

Bond was very nearly surprised that Quentin recalled the little detail of cover story Bond had dropped earlier – nearly, but not quite. For all the man appeared to be a bit awkward and a nervous new guardian, there was a decided sharpness to Quentin that both intrigued Bond and kept him on the alert.

“Each class is different,” Bond answered, “but I find it’s best not to come on too strong at first.”

If Moneypenny could hear him, she’d be laughing. Bond ignored the thought.

Quentin nodded, clearing his throat in the ensuing silence and taking a sip of his tea. “It must be different,” he said after a moment, “going from uni to a secondary school. What prompted the change?”

Just as Bond was going to answer, he was bumped from behind. He spun quickly, hands up in a defensive pose as his brain took a moment to register the cool splash and ice that had hit the back of his neck. Bond took in the middle-aged man holding a glass mug, now half-full of an iced coffee drink. A deep breath and he fell out of agent mode and back into his affable teacher role. The man sputtered his apologies.

While Lyon was dealing with the man and trying to mop up the damage, Quentin considered what he just saw. Lyon looked harmless enough, but his quick reaction and hand position showed that he had some sort of martial art training. He looked mild, but there was more under the surface.

Lyon turned back and said, “Twice! Twice in one day. I seem to be a magnet for bad luck and coffee drinks today.”

Bond is scowling at the papers he is now forced to mark. He wonders why he even agreed to be on this mission of going undercover. The idea sounds fun at first with pretending to be someone he is not since he does it often but being a teacher? And a french teacher with the name Lyon? He is starting to think that M or whoever evil in Q - Branch has dangled this case in front of him in the hope that he will take it.

‘Double Oh Seven, now playing the meek role of a French teacher in a school and now marking papers full of spelling errors and terrible handwriting of teenagers.’ James signs yet again and underlined the troublesome sentence and wrote ‘Rewrite everything and use a dictionary!’ at the top.

James has no mood to give himself a headache trying to make out what the reminding sentence or even what the essay is trying to say. All he could make out is that it might be about cheese, guillotine or maybe it is about the French revolution but badly put across in paper. He massages his temples as it pulsated with a headache threatening to appear. He wants a drink now badly but he is still in school and on the clock. James has a feeling that Eve will have his balls for drinking on the job.

“Why do I even agree to this?” He lamented out loud to no one in particular as he leans back and stares at the ceiling. 

James’ mind drifted off to the trip to France in the fall and thought about needing more adults to volunteer of this trip will go through. As his mind wonder on how to encourage his students to convince their guardians to volunteer, his mind drifted to Quentin. James frown, wonder again on their last encounter. The man looks surprised and horrified to see him at the same place as him like he is trying hard to hide a secret. James noticed how he clutched the laptop bag and slowly trying to slip away. As an agent, James noticed all the twitches and facial expression.

‘Maybe he is a spy too but if he is, he is truly terrible at his job.’ James chuckle.

He very much enjoyed having Quentin share a cup of tea with him. The man’s eyes are brilliant green of mosses and it lit up as they talk. His hands gesturing in excitement as they discuss Napoleon and why Quentin is even out.

“Hmm… Wonder if I can have him, volunteer, as one of the chaperones for the trip.” James muses as his brain work out a few different plots to have Quentin’s arm twisted to agree or he can just ask nicely and hope his charm does the magic as always. 


End file.
